Radio users, for example, in a public safety communication system, commonly receive audio messages from radio communications that are broadcast to other users, but which are not necessarily relevant to all users or to a particular user. Large numbers of such audio messages can sometimes inundate a user and lead the user to “tune out” the audio messages and miss important information.
Further, audio messages from multiple radio communications can sometimes overlap, and other competing audio, such as background noise, a car stereo or a conversation can be present in a user's environment. The user may therefore struggle to identify important audio messages among the overlapping messages, or struggle to hear important audio messages over competing audio from their environment.
A user, such as a Public Services Officer, will often manually turn a radio volume down to prevent a distraction from other tasks. The user will then often turn the volume up when he or she thinks they have heard something important, for example, a call sign, a name or a familiar voice. However, such an approach is manually intensive and may increase a likelihood that a user will miss important radio communications.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved method and system for providing alerts for radio communications.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.